Mesut Ozil has been out of action since the beginning of this year, but former Arsenal legend wants him to play.
Arsenal legend Freddie Ljungberg believes that Mesut Ozil should be included in the game at Emirates Stadium. The ex-Germany international’s career was hovering in space, after his exclusion from the squad under Mikel Arteta. Eventually, Ozil found himself out of the Premier League and Europa League roster, in spite of his heroics. Moreover, the 32-year-old is the highest-paid player at Arsenal, but could not impress the boss.
Ljungberg, who happened to have spent time managing the Gunners before Arteta, feels that there could be a solution. “Mesut is a great football player, we know that,” Ljungberg told The Athletic. “We all have different opinions and everybody needs to accept that people have different opinions.
“For me, maybe the way football has gone now sometimes he’s not as athletic defensively. Let’s say when you play Man City you don’t have the ball and need to just run after them, maybe you need more athletic players. What I tried to do, what I believed in, was that when you play teams who, on paper, you’re a bigger club than or you think they’ll have a low block and you need someone to unlock it, Mesut has the total quality to do that. I think there is a space for a player like that in those kinds of games.
“But then as well you need to have a communication with the player — not just Mesut, every player. There are different games that suit certain players and other games suit others. The days of playing every single minute of every game maybe are just not happening that often anymore.
“When I left in the summer he was in the squads and now he’s not. What’s happened there, I can’t answer. I don’t know if something else has happened, I have no clue. But if you look at pure football qualities, I think my answer is quite obvious.
“When I was interim coach, I would play him in the games when I thought he could unlock defences, even if I knew his defensive job was not as good as some other players. So that’s my opinion; there should be a space in certain games.”
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